1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for managing objects that are stored persistently. More particularly, the present invention relates to managing persistently stored objects within databases that are accessible by applications.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A persistent object may be defined as an abstraction of data that represents an object that may be involved in a business process and is stored persistently. Examples of persistent objects include orders, customers, products and the like. Persistent objects may be stored in different types of persistent storage, such as relational databases, object-oriented databases, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (“LDAP”) enabled directories, flat files, and the like. In persistent object environments, the term “data source” may refer to persistent storage so as to be applicable to all forms of persistent storage. For example, “data source” may indicate a database.
In addition to being stored, persistent objects may be managed. An application programming interface (“API”) may create, update, delete, and query the objects that are stored persistently. Managing persistent objects may become a priority as programs are written for any platform, such as Java applications. The application may look for the persistent objects or may create persistent objects to be used after the program has been completed. Therefore, a framework for persistent object API may be desired that is uniform and simple.